Room air conditioners generally include an air inlet fan or blower which is powered by a motor to draw air in through an evaporator coil to be cooled and to direct the cooled air back into the room. Such air conditioners also include a condenser coil for dissipating the heat picked up by the evaporator coil and a second fan or blower is provided to cause an air flow over the condenser coil to increase the heat dissipation of that coil.
A typical arrangement of the outside section of an air conditioner which houses the condenser coil and fan is for the fan motor and fan assembly to be mounted in a bracket of some sort attached to a base pan of the outdoor section. It is desirable to provide a shroud surrounding the outdoor fan. It is also desirable for the tolerances between outdoor fan and the shroud to be as close as possible.
Due to the complexity and the number of parts associated with mounting the fan motor and fan and supporting such a shroud, assembly of such a device often times includes complicated and time intensive assembly steps and requires intricate manipulation of parts and tools. This results in an increased cost of the room air conditioner due to increased material and labor costs.
One attempt to reduce the complexity of assembly of a room air conditioner is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,401 entitled "One-Piece Motor Mount For Use In An Air Conditioner". This patent illustrates a motor mounting bracket which is adapted to be attached to the base plate of an air conditioner by appropriate separate fastening means. As a result, while such mount accomplishes some simplification, alignment of the mount such that the motor and fan assembly supported thereby is properly oriented with respect to other elements of the air conditioner is still labor intensive.